Impact of Emotional Intelligence on Students’ Career Choice: Reference to Students of Faculty of Management Studies, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Career choice is not a single decision made at one point in time and it is a series of decisions taken by a person during the course of life about a career. Therefore, finding a right career has become an important decision in life science in the present context, is often subjected to overt and covert emotional bias. Historically, people believe that emotion is something that should be avoided when making important decisions, however recent studies on emotional intelligence have proved that emotions are internally linked with the cognitive system and may actually produce better results. Consequently, emotional intelligence might be antecedents of many of our decisions. Hence, the primary focus of this study was to examine the impact of emotional intelligence on the career choice of students. This explanatory type of casual study followed the quantitative research method and survey research strategy. The study population included all students studying at the Rajarata University, and 150 of them were selected as sample randomly from the faculty of Management Studies. The study identified self-awareness, self- management, social awareness, relationship management as independent variables and career choice as the dependent variable. A self-administered close-ended questionnaire that consisted of 30 questions was used to collect the data. Different statistical techniques, including correlation and regression test were employed to address research questions. The correlation test highlighted the significant association between self-awareness, self- management, social awareness and relationship management with undergraduate career choice. However, only two variable namely, self-management and relationship management significantly impacted on student’s career choice. Accordingly, a student who manages his/her emotions well and has a strong network with external constitutions could manage his/her career well rather than others. Thus, the researchers suggest that university should be implemented some motivational programmes to manage the students’ career. Keywords: Career choice, emotional intelligence, relationship management, self-management